Bar fashion wars — Doughty Street head takes on chambers colleague Amal Clooney
The London silk with the most malleable of accents also turns out to be a bit of a fashion plate to rival his chambers stable mate, Mrs George Clooney.
Geoffrey Robertson QC — the head of London’s Doughty Street Chambers — has for years been renowned for having the plumiest court voice at the bar … when appearing in London.
However, when in his native Australia, Robertson becomes as “G’day, cobber, how ya goin’?” as Crocodile Dundee.
But these days, in the wake of Amal Clooney’s meteoric rise to global fashion icon, the Twitter chat is all about what lawyers wear not how they sound.
@legalcheek Never mind Amal Clooney's outfit. The real barrister fashion story is Geoffrey Robertson QC's tie pic.twitter.com/fwZwJ2B5Os
— Nigel Poole (@NigelPooleQC) April 20, 2015
And let’s face it, Robertson isn’t without a spray of stardust himself — he’s married to the queen of chick-lit, Kathy Lette.
To be fair to Robertson, his fashion foibles are usually limited to a range of colourful ties. But as the Legal Cheek research department has demonstrated, the lawyer — who was called in 1973 and made up to silk in 1988 — is also not averse to the tropical shirt look or indeed the occasional shimmering dolphin jacket.
But will, as fellow silk Nigel Poole QC suggests, Robertson usurp Almal Clooney as the “real barrister fashion story”?
That seems unlikely — if today’s Mail Online is anything to go by. The voice of middle England is understandably fascinated and slightly obsessed with the woman it describes as one of the country’s “top human rights lawyers”.
And it will take a monumental effort — along with perhaps a spot of gender alteration — on the part of her head of chambers to realign Fleet Street’s affections.
According to the paper, Amal’s “wardrobe has gone from strength-to-strength since she tied the knot with George Clooney in Venice, Italy, last September. From elegant cream jumpsuits to panel shift dresses and suit/skirt combos, the 37-year-old always seems to get the balance of smart and sexy just right”.
Keep trying, Geoffrey.